Pettit: Resolutions are empty promises man makes to himself

Published: Sunday, January 13, 2008

I never thought to ask, I never knew;

But, in my simple ignorance, suppose

The self-same power that brought me there brought you.

- Emerson

ABOUT THIS TIME of year is when you start to see strange people popping up in unusual places ... like, say, the mall or the sidewalk right in front of your house. My advice is to not bother to meet them because they won't be there very long.

In either place, they are there to exert their best intentions, their resolve to start off this year with a keen dedication to get themselves into shape, lose excess poundage and, in general, to get acquainted with the way they remember themselves when their self-esteem was at a different level.

They figure to do that by briskly walking, either indoors or out, at least once a day until the goal is achieved.

There are three good reasons why I will be making no New Year's resolutions to kick off here at the front end of 2008.

They are, listed in order of their occurrence, drinking, smoking and gluttony.

Because I suspect that the most popular choices among resolutions involve at least one of the three, refraining from any of them would be, for me, a moot point.

With prodding from forces having naught to do with New Year's resolutions, I have already dealt with the three.

A. I quit smoking almost a quarter-century ago because I did not want to expose my first grandchild, who was spending his first week on earth, to second-hand smoke.

B. I spent the last 11 months of 2007 on a rather strict diet that, not coincidently, did coincide with my annual physical. My blood sugar reading startled my doctor and my weight threatened his scales.

C. I haven't had a single sip of alcohol since several years before I even quit smoking. My reasons for temperance had nothing to do with any resolution; or, for that matter, religion or personal morality.

Exactly why I quit drinking will not be published hereabouts or even discussed later in private.

IN MY OWN opinion, New Year's resolutions are both stupid and senseless.

In the first place, there's only one way a New Year's resolution can be made to actually work. That's for it to involve something you don't like to do, anyway.

For example, if I were required by some outside power - the law, IRS and society itself come to mind - to make and keep a resolution, I would quickly resolve to eat no more coconut, raisons or celery.

Or maybe I would vow to buy no rap music CDs, watch no reality TV and to seldom bathe with my necktie on (that last part comes awfully close to getting in to what I promised a few lines before to never discuss).

Although I quit smoking by going cold turkey, it was not the first success I had achieved in kicking the habit. Now, I'm not talking about all the times that I decided to quit, but never really got past the second or third painful urge.

There was that time in 1964 when, right after the Surgeon General's report on smoking and cancer, I laid down my cigarettes for more than a year. Then, with the difficult part behind me, I got on an airplane with the Tech basketball team for a routine flight to Houston.

Somewhere in the vicinity of Spur, the port engine on the chartered DC-3 shut down. Being as there were only two engines to begin with, we limped our way back to the Lubbock airport.

As we were deplaning, one of the pilots disclosed to Gene Gibson, the Tech coach at the time, that he was really surprised that it was the port engine that went out, explaining that "it was the starboard engine that had been acting up all the way down here from Oklahoma City ..."

Just inside the old airport terminal was a cigarette machine. I bought a pack and went back to chain-smoking for another 20 years ...

THE LATE George Bernard Shaw once said - anyway, I think it was Shaw because it sure sounds like him - that marriage remains popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.

Well, you could say the very same thing about the three habits I have given up - at least, at the time I did it. Back then, almost everybody I socialized with, worked with or even knew smoked, drank and ate with abandon.

All of them would offer you a cigarette or a beer and a few would even buy you a banana split. So temptation was often coupled with opportunity.

The portion of Shaw's theory which no longer works involves both marriage and smoking. When he said that, the majority of people got married before comfortably doing something that required a cigarette afterward.

Smoking, it would seem to me, must be easier to quit now when there are so few places where it is allowed. Back during my own smoking days, that was not the case. In fact, I can remember the sheer agony of a trip on a corporate jet on which smoking was strictly forbidden.

We flew from Jacksonville, Florida, to Lubbock, bucking a headwind all the while. Recalling the taste of that first puff once we landed is a constant reminder of why it was so dern hard to quit.

SO, HERE I am, decades removed from my last drink and my last smoke, and purt near a year away from that life-changing physical exam, thinking about the results of each.

My lungs are clear, my slur has lessened, my weight is down by more than 50 pounds and my blood sugar is normal without medication. And only two of the three matters leave me wanting ... or maybe envious is the better word.

I must admit to feeling a bit jealous when I watch a friend enjoy a glass of wine at dinner or a cocktail just for the heck of it; and when somebody eats a Butterfinger Blizzard in my presence, the lust in my heart settles in my taste buds.

It's much different with smoking. Nowadays when I see somebody light up, instead of envy I feel either concern or pity.

The concern happens when it's a youngster, college or high school kids who are being betrayed by their own natural feelings of invulnerability.

The pity is for those who know better but are unwilling to fight the battle. I've seen no statistics to support it, but it seems to me that most of the smokers fall into the group that can financially afford it least.

Nope. I will be offering up no resolutions for 2008. Now don't get me wrong. The three things that I mentioned having given up were not the only flaws that I need to attend. And maybe someday I will.

But don't count on it.

Life is spiced by doing some things that are worth regretting afterwards ...

So be it resolved.

BURLE PETTITis editor emeritus of The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. E-mail: burlepettit@sbcglobal.net with the word "column" in the subject line.